


Time For Every Boy to Be a Soldier

by daredevilmoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, The Great War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 02:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1711274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/pseuds/daredevilmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: <i> Thomas being given cause to fear that someone suspects his war wound was self-inflicted </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Time For Every Boy to Be a Soldier

Thomas pressed himself tighter against the mud wall, breath finally slowing until it seemed to him that his panic ebbed with the flow of blood. The pain had begun to seem only a ringing in his ears; he tentatively drew his hands away from where he clutched them at his chest.

Some of the blood in his palm poured away when he turned it and, having wiped the rest away as best he could, he saw a perfectly circular wound. He stared at for a moment, blinking, as the blood still pouring from the back of his hand continued to seep into his trousers. That didn’t worry him - he’d grown accustomed to wearing blood. He fought back tears at the sight of that perfect little wound; he wasn’t even sure if such a thing was enough to get a Blighty ticket.

He tried to move his fingers and found that he could - though a pain nauseating enough to make him vomit what little was in his stomach accompanied it. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket before  turning his hand over.

There, the flesh was completely blown apart, skin peeled away to expose bone. He’d seen worse.

And that was the thing - he’d seen _so_ much worse.

Who couldn’t look at his hand and know how it had happened? They would all know that he’d done it to himself, either by Hun or his own hand. It was certainly one of the less creative blighties he’d seen, though he’d never said anything. He didn’t know of anyone who had, not in his company, but he’d heard down the line of men being shot for cowardice. With the new men fluctuating into his company all the time, who was to say one wouldn’t find service to King & country more rewarding than sparing a fellow Briton’s life?

The panic crept back into him and he sunk his head into his hands, gasping and weeping. Death by Hun or Tommie - it hardly mattered. He wanted neither, he didn’t want to lose for nothing and that was all his death on the fields would ever be. He had tried, but not hard enough. He hadn’t thought it through, but who could think of anything but the guts of men they’d stood alongside, the way they felt in one’s hands? The way men shrieked as they died or shrieked in the night - all to the same end? For someone to _save_ them.

Thomas didn’t shriek, _wouldn’t_ \- but he cried out for himself. He realised, his face buried in his blood-warm hands, he may have damned himself more than anyone else ever could.

"Corporal Barrow?"

The voice broke the reverie of his sorrow and Thomas jerked up, staring at the man blankly. Fairbanks.

"I take it you’ll live," the man said, "but what on earth happened?"

"I was - looking over to see if the men were in sight, sir. I heard the shelling and thought - I had my lighter up. I guess the Huns aren’t so crack a shot as we thought, sir," he said, voice dull to his own ears. He held up his hand, exposing the worst of it. Fairbanks leaned in to take a closer look and grimaced at the sight.

"Damned lucky, Barrow. Damned lucky."

He looked Thomas over a moment, taking in his trembling and tear-stained form before helping him to haul himself to his feet. Fairbanks fumbled in his jacket for a moment before procured a flask and handed it over.

"I imagine you could do with something," he said. Thomas accepted wordlessly, drinking more than was strictly sporting as he watched Fairbanks pick up the lighter he had dropped. Thomas handed him the flask back as Fairbanks said, "Suppose you’ll want a cigarette, as well."

Thomas reached into his pocket for his own pack, offering it to out. Fairbanks lit one and Thomas told him to take one for himself, as well.

"Very kind," came the perfunctory response.

Once Fairbanks had lit his own cigarette, he took the time to stare at Thomas for a moment in the soft glow of flame.

"Christ’s sake, Barrow, you’re covered in blood," he heaved with a sigh, removing his handkerchief. He poured a drop of the rum into it, replacing it once more, before he wiped some of the blood from Thomas’s face.

When Thomas opened his eyes, he found his gaze immediately caught in Fairbanks’s . “You swear to me that’s what happened? “

That earlier panic welled in Thomas once more and tears started to prick his eyes; he _couldn’t_ panic, _couldn’t_ weep - what better admission of guilt that proving to them that you were weak? After a moment, he gave a sharp nod and said, “Yes, sir.”

"I won’t argue," Fairbanks informed, turning to look down the trench. "It’s your medical lot you’ll have to answer to, I suppose."

"What I said is what happened, sir," came Thomas’s clear reply.

"I don’t doubt. Come on, then, I suppose you ought to have that looked after."

"Yes, sir," Thomas answered as he followed Fairbanks’s path. "I’m sure it’s fine, really, sir. It’s not even much of an injury."

He felt the tears well up in his eyes once more, spilling now that the other’s back was turned. God knew if he’d even get to go home for this.

No - not home. But back to Blighty, at any rate.


End file.
